Your Guide to the Best 8 Festival Discovery Apps

By now, we have all become accustomed to the essential apps we should keep a tab on during the festival season.

Diving into the myriad of festival options – each promising the time of your life – is more like stepping into a mined battlefield than an uneventful voyage. What separates defeat from a red-letter experience is that little thing that’s either in your pocket or hand right now. 

Well, it’s not that much about the mobile device itself. It’s more about getting it equipped with the festival discovery apps. If you haven’t quite pinpointed the festivals you can’t miss this year, here is a bundle of festival discovery apps to find your perfect fest match. 

Choose your character wisely and let the festival hunt begin.

1. Soundclub

Nothing screams FOMO cure more than having over 3,000 festivals at your fingertips. Soundclub is the digital realm safeguarding everything and anything falling in the fest category – from the iconic Coachella to the humble Sunny Hill. 

With a digitally-intuitive interface that’s both user-friendly and dynamic, this festival discovery app knows how to deliver the shortcut to your festival soulmate better than anyone. A quick peek at its extensive options will make you realize this is no speed dating process.

Soundclub wants to know you inside out – from your favorite music genre (be it the electronic umbrella term or urban subgenres) to your ideal budget. 

For those with no clue about what they want from your next fest experience, Soundclub also features three explore categories – popular, trending, and recommended. While the first two are self-explanatory, the latter is algorithm-based (the events’ rundown is linked to what you’ve viewed, saved and interacted with), making it the ultimate festival matchmaker.

Brace yourself for a full-on fest encyclopedia when you tap on an event. Individual festival data follows the same skilfully-organized pattern – about, media, lineup, wall and memories.

While the first one serves as a short data breakdown revolving around the festival’s nuts and bolts, media is where the fest world unfolds before your eyes through a carefully-curated selection of pictures and videos. 

Your festival hunt and community concept merge in the wall section. Resembling a social media feed, this category is a blank canvas for whoever wants to share their thoughts, ask for advice or find a fest gang to join.

For some of us, reviews are the ultimate deal breaker in picking a festival. The memories section is the tappable realm where festival-goers share their past experiences with a fest – be it text-based or through visual media. 

If your first festival mission is bagging the best ticket deal, Soundclub is your bestie. With this festival discovery app in your pocket, you are one tap away from having all of the available ticket options in one place.

2. Songkick

Here to simplify finding the ‘it’ festival while making it a user-friendly experience, Songkick always puts music fans on a pedestal. Showcasing a simple yet solid home menu revolving around your top picks, this is yet another discovery app that focuses on recommendations rather than filtering. 

Songkick creates a bespoke experience by allowing you to import your favorite music heroes through Facebook and Spotify. If you aren’t fully satisfied by the app’s advisor skills, you can still opt for filtering – but you’ll only get to pick your next party destination by genre, location, and date.

But who cares about filtering when you get a comprehensive guide on each festival? The lineup, map, start time, venue info, and a bundle of ticket options are all part of the package. One thing you’ll immediately spot as soon as you tap on an event is the interested/going button.

Generating a massive Facebook Events vibe, this particular feature calls attention to Songkick’s unique social platform brimming with music aficionados. 

3. Viberate

Joining over a million up-to-date pages of artists, concerts, and festivals, Viberate is a top tier for far-reaching events inventories. From titans like Rolling Loud to underground festivals like Sunwaves, this discovery tool puts an impressive amount of events at the users’ fingertips.

Viberate taps into the unique identity of every festival goer – this is why it offers a wide array of filtering options. For those of you who might get puzzled by the hoard of available events, the filtering button is your ultimate holy grail. Country, music genre, amenities, and timeframe are part of the Q&A that Viberate uses to fulfill its mission as a festival matchmaker.

As soon as you tap on your desired fest, your eyes will be instantly glued to the easily-digestible breakdown of information. Following the all-inclusive concept reflected in the inventory, the individual festival section gives users all the information they might – and might not – need. 

Besides bringing after movies, lineups, and amenities in one place, Viberate acts as a festival coach through its unique ranking system. The fest hierarchy has three parameters at its core – online popularity, lineup quality, and network prominence. 

Viberate might not be an app per se just yet, but it surely makes up for it with its user-friendly and clean interface.

4. Bandsintown

What’s better than a festival discovery app allowing you to browse through hundreds of events that match your vibe? An app that keeps you connected to them, too – and that’s exactly what Bandsintown’s mantra is. Featuring a user-friendly interface, this digital tool spoils its users for choice with its extensive database – but it doesn’t stop there. 

Whenever you find an eye-catching event during your browsing process, you can either save the event or set a reminder for it – or both, depending on how hyped up it got you. Leave the rest to Bandsintown – its version of a 7AM alarm won’t let you miss another event that your party animal profile matches with.

On this festival discovery app, the traditional filtering system translates into a specific text-based search. Users might not benefit from the universal date, genre, and location filters, but they are blessed with a user-centralized experience. Your one shot at finding your ideal event is through the app’s recommended section – a curated list of events based on your followed artists. 

This digital jungle where your personal preferences reign supreme is complemented by additional uber-helpful categories, such as ‘what’s how in your area’ and ‘what’s happening tonight’. Should we also mention they stream music events? I think we’re good.

5. Electronic Festivals

This one reigns supreme in the realm of festival discovery apps whose loyalty translates into an umbrella music genre. Featuring a dynamic interface that showcases the world map and how many festivals take place in each region, this online tool covers everything that’s EDM-infused.

When it comes to filtering, Electronic Festivals is not as generous as the average festie hunter would expect it to be. A big part of its filtering system is name search – which is not very useful if you are on a discovery adventure. At least the optionality doesn’t stop there. Users can choose one of the many electro-music subgenres (from techno to trance), size, country, and date. 

In the festival information chapter, the discovery tool won’t add much value to your agenda since it pretty much repeats the filtering choices.

The cherry on top is how the lineup section is laid out – each artist is accompanied by the subgenre he serves. 

We might dig Electronic Festivals’ peppy visuals, but we are not fans of their limited ticket seller options.

At the end of the day, at least we are blessed with the festival accommodation map.

6. Music Festival Wizard

One thing’s for sure – this festival advisor loves the festival season as much as we do. There is no other explanation for the 57-page festival breakdown. Its filtering taps into the preferences that your average discovery app wouldn’t include, such as venue type (island fest, anyone?) and camping availability. But it doesn’t forget to spotlight the vast array of basic filter options – from festival size to predominant music genre.  

With its digitally-intuitive design, Music Festival Wizard allows its users to explore festivals without any frills. Individual festival data is easily navigable through its skillful categorization, each following the leitmotifs of headliners, festival trailer, venue info, and current lineup. 

While this festival discovery tool passes the comprehensive information test with flying colors, it falls short when ticket options come on stage. Most fests usually feature one ticket seller option – not enough if you want to bag the best deal. 

7. Wegow

This Spanish start-up might not have the greatest inventory for festivals, but at least it tries to get to know the music preferences of each user – that’s why it gives you the option to sign in through Spotify and Facebook. 

Now that you synced your beloved music genres and most-cherished artist, the world of filtering unfolds before your eyes. It might not be much, but it’s honest work – the festival discovery app keeps it short and sweet by focusing on essential ABCs such as music genre, date, location, and venue. 

Information about the event itself is somehow modest. Users only get a glimpse of the timeframe, artists, and accommodation map – at least there is a bundle of ticket sellers at your fingertips to wipe the tears of disappointment away. 

But the icing on the cake is the value that Wegow places on individuality within the community. Not only that the discovery app showers users with its festival mentorship skills through the “recommended for you section” (probably based on the artists and genres you are following), but it also gives a sense of community. 

You can connect with people, chat with festies attending the same festival as you do, and meet people with the same music taste. With this pocket-sized festival planner, you will never feel lonely.

8. Edmtrain

As a go-to source for everything EDM-infused, this festival discovery app created a foolproof interface – nothing is more practical than a scrollable listicle. Since it serves the electronic niche, you can expect a sweeping supply of festivals with bumpy beats at their core.

From the Ultra titan to rookie fests like Moonwalk, Edmtrain has it all covered for you. 

Not an EDM fan? No problem. The app has an ‘other genres’ section, allowing users to discover a wide range of events that are more into metal and contemporary folk than house beats. You better know the name of the fest you want to attend because Edmtrain doesn’t leave much room for filtering. 

If you don’t, your only coordinates are artist and city – which are far from enough if you want your festival discovery journey to be both time-effective and smooth. 

Edmtrain might be a pro at organizing festival information into easily digestible chunks, but the digital platform is a novice at delivering completeness.

Users will only get the event’s poster, accompanied by some very succinct info – date, venue, and headliners. Thinking that clicking on it will land you on a more enlightening web page? Think again. 

It will send you to either the festival’s official page or a ticket seller. You are pretty much left with only one sad and lonely ticket option. At least Edmtrain gives you discount codes for some fest passes – so it gets a gold start for that.

9. Festivaly

Cute interface, poor inventory – this might be Festivaly’s slogan. While fest monoliths like Coachella are there, ready to be scrolled through or tapped on, major unmissable events like Rolling Out Loud and Ultra are nowhere to be found.

As for filtering, the good old date-place-genre trio is ruling your discovery process. However, users should appreciate the online platform’s plethora of choice for music genres. While most apps focus on umbrella terms such as urban instead of R&B and hip-hop, Festivaly gives prominence to everything from jazz to alternative.

Individual festival info consists of what we are already used to – short breakdown of lineup, date and venue name. Don’t expect to be spoilt for choice when you decide to purchase a ticket. Festivaly will give you just one option, so better go do your own research on that *sigh*.